Yes, you read the title correctly. What goes around, eventually comes around. Sure, I've been known to pull a few legs, tease, and maybe even con a few people into pushing themselves, but this time the joke was 100% on me. As a firm believer in Karma, guess this is the universe getting me back.
CT and I are sitting in the car, in a park, in what feels like the middle of nowhere, waiting for a race to start. There are a few other runners around, so I'm confident we are in the right place, mainly because I doubt there are a combined five runners within thirty miles of this parking lot! Why would we sign up for race that we know nothing about? Well, that's because there should be two other people in the backseat of this car doing this with us. They shall remain nameless, only because I'm so mad at them at the moment, it's possible I'd slip and call them by name and not my fake fictitious names!
The map, it's hand drawn. Before I really comment on it, I must mention that the stack of maps is inches thick. Seriously, it feels as if they printed twenty maps for every person signed up for this race. What do they know that I don't? Should I be taking extra maps to use as bread crumbs? Back to the map itself, because it's hand drawn, especially like the touch of "not to scale" written on it, can't help but be reminded of how much it looks like a drunken pirate treasure map. This is going to add to some of the adventure, deciphering this, while trying to to trip and fall, can't wait to see the treasure at the end.
The car smells. Why does it smell? This is on me, but not because of what you are thinking. Since I've got no clue what this course is going to be like, decided to bring both my trail shoes and my regular road shoes to make a race time decision as to which to wear. Just so happens that it rained the day before, my road shoes got wet, and they never completely dried. They smell awful! The Star Wars trash compactor scene comes to mind with Han saying "What an incredible smell you've discovered". C'mon you furry oaf, get in there!
Slosh, slosh, goes the gun (this is an omen)! The herd starts on a paved trail, kind of. But because this is the true spirit of cross country trail racing, most of us are starting in the soggy grass off to the side. We weren't running for more that two football fields when somebody next to me yelled, "This way guys!"and taking a ninety degree turn. The pave trail path continued straight with about four guys heading down it, as the rest of us turned to run in more of a grass field to enter some woods and a dirt path. Somebody here is getting trick f*cked and we aren't even a half mile in, this is going to be an interesting day.
For the next few miles it settled in to a normal trail run through the woods. Ha! Trick f*cked you! Let me see if I can even break this down, first two miles went like this, grass, dirt trail, woods trail, grass, two track, parking lot, grass borderline mud, corn field, awww look back on the paved trail that was there at the start, woods trail again.In case you were wondering, I did decide to go with the smelly road shoes and no, none of that description was me lost. Already regretting that decision a bit because between the wet grass and fallen wet leaves on the trail, it's slick. Countdown to the first fall, starts now.
By about mile four, nobody was within eye sight anymore. The six to seven guys ahead of me had enough distance that I could only catch glimpses of them. Taking a peak behind me, I assume it was most likely the same case for anybody chasing me. The next wide open corn field, I broke from my tradition to cut every corner as tight as I can, because in this race's case, the inside path apparently is butting up against a swamp because it's that wet. Squish, squash. No sooner do I suspect that, when I went knee deep in muck. Yup, trick m*cked! Thought these shoes smelled bad prior, can't wait to smell them after this! It's about this point where now it begins weighing on my mind, with as injury prone CT is, this is a recipe for disaster. Hope, she's running careful and smart.
Two more swamps, because this part was an out and back, a long dirt road, woods, hey there goes the start, a nice long paved trail, back to woods and a section that reminded me of the football tire drill, yet with roots all the while on a crazy slope where if you trip and fall, the roots will guide and roll you right into the swap you are skirting at the moment. Treasure map my ass, this feels more like a gauntlet. By this point, all thoughts are of my two "friends", probably still in bed and without a doubt knew what they had gotten out of.
Somewhere around mile ten, finally did enough loops to finally see CT. In passing, my advice of "be damn careful" was responded back with "already hurt my knee back at mile two". Great!
Finishing up, can't remember a race when I was more happy to see the finish line. Success to me was simply not falling and by some miracle not injuring myself. Even though I know my training coming into this race was horrible, with the size, figured I'd do good enough. Even though got trick f*cked, it was still good enough to win my age group. In one last bit of trick f*ckery, CT ended up getting third in her age group, which is still great, but looking at the results after the first overall woman (who wasn't that far behind me) and first woman in CT's age group had the exact same time. For a race that all that different terrain, only a gun time start, it's odd to me that two people finished at the exact same time....especially for first overall. I know my Karma is now reset. CT's on the other hand, apparently she's been a little worse that I've been, because she got trick f*cked one more time!
Time to plan some payback...
